Have some fun with Toms River Police this summer and support TRPD

The Toms River Police Department will be out all over the township this summer protecting us and keeping us safe and helping us enjoy our summers but they'll also be having a series of events and camps for people of all ages to have fun with them as well.

In addition to discussing summer safety tips as a guest on 'Shore Time with Vin and Dave' on 94.3 The Point and 105.7 The Hawk on Sunday morning, Toms River Police Chief Mitch Little also detailed a number of events and camp-related activities that you can come out and enjoy with the Toms River Police Department this summer and get a chance to know them and other people in the community.

"Just like everybody else wants to have fun, we do too!" Chief Little said.

The Toms River Police Foundation supports everything that the department does in protecting our community as well as educating, providing awareness to a number of causes and helping others as well.

The Toms River Police Cadet Program, formerly known as Police Explorers.

"Our cadets are 14-years-old up to the age of 21 that learn about police work, a lot of them want to go into careers as a police officer," Chief Little said. "We do get a lot of those cadets that do end up going to college and coming back to us and taking our test, which is awesome, and we get a great chance to look at them, they help us out with all these events, they help us out with downtown events. We're always looking for cadets, so any parents that are looking to get their kids exposed to what we do, would be amazing."

One of the fundraisers being held for the Toms River Police Foundation is their upcoming Golf Outing on June 15 being held at Bay Lea Golf Course.

"That is registration at Noon on June 15 with a shotgun start at 1:00 and we can have up to 132 golfers, but we're only taking foursomes," Chief Little said.

To sign up and learn more about the Golf Outing, you can visit the Toms River Police Foundation website.

"Last time, we filled it up, and we had a blast!" Chief Little said. By 5:00 everybody comes back and we have a buffet dinner at the Shogun restaurant out on the deck, and it's just a great time," Chief Little said. "Our officers are going to be involved, we have all the different organizations that support us that are going to be there, our retired officers come out and sometimes we'll even pair up the newer officers with the retired officers so that everybody can learn a little bit about each other."

Chief Little also said that Pine Belt will be having a car giveaway if you get a hole in one.

The Toms River Police Youth Camp is being held again this summer.

"Every year, we take Toms River students, residents anywhere from 6th, 7th, or 8th grade and they come and they basically do a boot camp with us for the week," Chief Little said.

The Toms River Police Youth Camp will be held this summer the week of July 11 and the police department is taking application submissions until June 15.

"It fills up fast, we're already halfway filled up," Chief Little said. "Last year, we had 50 kids sign up and 50 kids showed up every single day and they graduated 50 kids -- it was awesome. We even go to the High School North auditorium and we have a graduation ceremony just like the police academy, they get exposed to Evoc training which is going in a police car and the officers driving through an obstacle course, they do a ropes course, they have a state police helicopter that comes in, they spend some time with the fire department, sometimes we go out to Lakehurst and we get to learn about the Hindenburg and some of the things they do."

National Night Out with Toms River Police will be in August.

"National Night Out is supposed to be for law enforcement agencies to bring the community together and show everybody what we do and who we are," Chief Little said. "Through our TR: United, which stands for Toms River Uniting Neighbors and Towns every day, we're doing a separate component to this, so instead of just having our equipment out and getting to know the officers, we're also inviting the public out for every culture that is supported through Toms River, come out and have a booth where you could have traditional dress, you can display your traditional art and traditional games."

The event has been and will be held at Huddy Park in downtown Toms River.

"When you go over the bridge, from where all the food trucks are for all the cultures, you walk over the bridge and you literally land in culture land, so every booth will have its own culture, and we give out passports so kids and families go to each booth to learn about those cultures -- we have Muslim culture here, we have conservative Jewish, Orthodox Jewish, we have Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, you name it, and it's beyond religion, right, so we have a lot of walks of life here. This gives everybody an opportunity to know about each other and then by the time they walk around the entire world and get to know each other, they come back to our booth and they get a prize from the Toms River Police Department."

There will also be an obstacle course set up there as well, and a booth that'll be set up where you can learn traditional dances as well and learn about other cultures.

"Last year, I think we had about 3,000 people show up, through the course of four hours, but it was amazing" Chief Little said. "I think a lot of the problems we have are misunderstanding, so, if everybody understands why certain cultures do the things that they do and how it originated -- and some of these cultures go back thousands of years -- then we start to understand, 'okay, now I understand why we can't eat certain things or do certain things', and we find out we're more alike than we're different."